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| Viewing event |
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Solar Eclipse Viewing
19 March 2015
There’s a 90% solar eclipse this Friday morning, 20 March Maximum extent occurs at around 9.30am. Various methods of viewing the eclipse will be available in Trinity College outside B2 Great Court from 8.30am on Friday. All welcome! (bring a small mirror if you can) To get an idea of how to view the eclipse safely take a look at what we did in 2004 for the Transit of Venus <
http://www2.eng.cam.ac.uk/~hemh/transit.htm> You’ll see what the mirror is for. Hopefully the weather will be OK!
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The
above announcement was sent to all of Engineering. Mark and I still
remember seeing a similar level of eclipse back in NJ, so we were very
psyched. Of course, the weather forecast was for clouds until 11am, which was after the eclipse would be over. Nonetheless, we went over to Trinity College around 9 to see what was up and there was a hardy group of fellow revelers there despite the clouds. The event was hosted by some random Engineering professor who apparently does this sort of thing as a hobby. We waited around for the 30 minutes until peak, but since it was already cloudy it didn't seem to get much darker.
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| Trinity College Library |
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| Inside Trinity Library |
The Trinity Library is very famous and was opening early with a special eclipse exhibit, so we decided to go over to that and hope that some clearing of the sky would happen. Unlike Emmanuel College (my college), Trinity scores high on the wow factor. You walk through a corrider and emerge into a courtyard, with the library straight ahead. Gasp worthy. The ground level is a covered cloister, while the actual library is on top. When you actually go into the library it is time for more gasps. The pictures don't do it justice. In addition to the eclipse things, we got to see various possesions of Isaac Newton (including his own Principia copy) and a handwritten Winnie the Pooh book.
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| Trinity College Main Court |
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| Happy Spring |
At 10:00 we reemerged back to the cloudy outdoors. The crowds at the event viewing had really thinned, but our host kept encouraging people to stay as the clouds were thinning. And we were rewarded for our patience about 15 minutes later when the cloud cover was light enough that we could actually glimpse the eclipse for a teeny bit now and then. And because it was so so cloudy we could look directly. Or so he says, and I haven't lost my vision yet.
Just as predicted, the sun did come out around 11 and it turned into a beautifully clear day. I was very taken with the daffodil cupcakes that I saw in a window - it was also the first day of spring.
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